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Conor Oberst Best Quotes

Conor Mullen Oberst (born February 15, 1980) is an American singer-songwriter best known for his work in Bright Eyes. He has also played in several other bands, including Desaparecidos, Norman Bailer (The Faint), Commander Venus, Park Ave., Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, Arab Strap and Monsters of Folk. Oberst was named the Best Songwriter of 2008 by Rolling Stone magazine. Enjoy Conor Oberst’s best quotes below.

“The idea of forever is kind of ridiculous, which is unfortunate because it’s kind of a nice thing to say, you know. I think it softens the blow of mortality and having to say goodbye to everything you know and everyone you love and all that kind of thing.”

“On every Bright Eyes record, there’s some kind of sound collage that begins it. Some of them have dialogue, some don’t. I like it because it can kind of slow down the attention span a bit. It’s a way to draw you in to the rest of the record.”

“I know a girl who cries when she practices violin because each note sounds so pure it just cuts into her, and then the melody comes pouring out her eyes. Now, to me, everything else just sounds like a lie.”

“I don’t really premeditate what I write my songs about; you know, they just kind of happen, and I can’t start writing songs to please a certain group of people or propagate a certain message all the time. That’s just not how my songwriting works – it just sort of comes out, and the songs are what they are.”

“In theory, I always think I should totally go back to school, because I don’t want to start sinking slowly… I want to learn, blah blah blah. Then I think about actually going and sitting in classes and, man, it sounds terrible.”

“I think we should be pushing for amnesty and a path to citizenship for every undocumented person residing in the United States who has not committed a violent crime, with a special emphasis on keeping families together.”

“I’ll never understand how destroying families through deportation benefits our society. How we treat the undocumented says a great deal about us as a people and whether or not we’ll continue to fulfill the fundamental American promise of equality and opportunity for all.”

“To me, a political song is also a personal song. Most political activism has been driven by empathy for other people and the desire for a world that’s less divisive. Even if songs aren’t overtly political, they can make a listener more empathetic.”

“To outsiders it probably seems like splitting hairs, but to me, Bright Eyes is a simply the collaboration between myself and Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott. What you hear is definitely the sum of all our ideas and represents all three of us. But I still write the songs myself.”

“I really believe in the way the energy can consolidate in certain geographical spots. You can find it in a lot of different places, beautiful natural spots, or if you look at Islam or Judaism or Christianity, these ideas of holy places.”

“I’ve thought about the idea of, ‘Can happiness and creativity co-exist?’ So much of what I’ve done, I think, has been based on being dissatisfied or incomplete or lonely. The answer is, ‘There isn’t an answer, necessarily.’”

“My favorite rhymes are sort of half-rhymes where you might just get the vowel sound the same, but it’s not really a true rhyme. That gives you far more flexibility to capture the feeling you’re trying to express. But sometimes it’s best not to have any rhyme.”

“When I was younger, I was somewhat of an idealist. I guess I’m a little bit more of a realist now. I think there’s a lot that can be done to make the world a better place, but it’s more about choosing your battles.”

“Once you realize that everyone is in the same boat, that everyone is just as insecure and childlike as everyone else, that all these jokers in D.C. ruining our world are just greedy kids grabbing for marbles – I think that realization means you’re an adult.”

“When you’re 16 or 17, I think like most people that age, the first time you experience certain things in life, whether it’s heartbreak or death or love, obviously it’s going to seem like a much bigger deal.”

“Art is basically communication, and I think everyone who’s a music lover has had that experience where a record or a recording has kept you company when no one else is around. And I think that is what I’m hoping that people get out of my music.”

“I don’t feel real confident expressing myself except when I’m writing. I feel kind of scatterbrained. I can see everything from both sides and that makes it hard to reach conclusions. Writing enables me to clarify things.”

“It’s glorious to be able to go onto the Internet and hear any kind of music anywhere, from anywhere, and get it instantly. But there’s also something glorious about having a record with a sleeve and looking at the artwork, putting it on the turntable and playing it, there’s still something romantic to me about that.”

“On good days, I can see the inherent goodness in people, and that human beings have a high capacity to learn and adapt. But things like the environment, nuclear weapons and ideas like peak oil – if you think about them too much, they can really freak you out.”

“You can only really understand good if you have bad, so the idea of heaven or anything that happens for eternity, even if it’s nice, I can’t imagine it being nice forever. Even the idea of forever is kind of ridiculous, which is unfortunate because it’s kind of a nice thing to say, you know.”

“The one recurring theme in my writing, and in my life in general, is confusion. The fact that anytime you think you really know something, you’re going to find out you’re wrong – that is the rule. The moments where you think you have something figured out, those are the exceptions.”

“I have many friends who are both Mexican and Mexican-American and others who, I guess you would say, are somewhere in between. The ironic thing is that all three of those categories often exist inside of the same family.”

“I prefer career artists that have spent time honing their craft, as opposed to, ‘I won a karaoke contest on a reality show and now I have a record.’ That’s such a drag. The music that comes out of it is so poor.”

“I try to keep the idea that there’s an audience in as little space in my mind as possible, but you can’t erase it entirely, the idea that when you’re sitting down to write a song, people are going to hear it.”

“There’s a major underlying idea as you grow up that you need to just save your money and get that affordable housing at the edge of town where you’re away from the city where all the crime happens or whatever.”

“Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of my all-time favorite writers. I feel spiritual when reading his words, even though they’re translated. I wish desperately that I could read it in its original language. I already feel like I’m going to church when I read him; imagine if I could read it in the original.”

“Joe Arpaio needs no help from me getting attention. For years he has been a beacon of bigotry and intolerance for all the world to see. The list of human and civil-rights abuses he’s committed in Maricopa County is long and well documented.”

“With science and reason throughout history, what people believed turned out to be false. So I like to keep an open mind to all perspectives and learn and become more fully realised as a person. I just feel we’re never going to know what the full picture is.”

“When I run into a person or a kid that comes up and gives me the spiel about, ‘Hey, I got your record at this time in my life, and it really helped me,’ that stuff totally still rings true. If you’re standing there talking to someone, it’s really easy to tell if they’re being authentic or not. And that’s great.”

“One of my best friends, Mike, had a kid. Just seeing him go through it all was inspiring. It would be so nice to care about someone more than yourself. And Mike is a total delinquent, so if he can do it, I figure I can, too.”

“People resist change; if they like something, then they want you to keep doing it over and over – but I think if you like what a particular band or artist does, then you should want to see what they’re going to do next.”

“I’m always fascinated when people really fervently believe, because I have such a hard time believing anything. When people have real faith in something, it’s fascinating to me. And the fact that so many people, in surveys, so many people say they do. It kind of blows my mind.”

“When I try to explain to people the big influences in my life, or at least when I first started, the most important ones were my friends who were also writing songs and were typically four or five years older than me.”

“You can’t manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There’s still a lot of mystery to songwriting. I don’t have a method that I can go back to – they either come or they don’t.”

“I like science fiction. Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick and Vonnegut, and I really like Margaret Atwood, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.’ And you know, so much of science fiction has to do with predicting what’s to come, so I think that’s really interesting.”

“The first music I ever got into was the ’80s alternative bands that my brother listened to, like The Cure and The Smiths and R.E.M. and Fugazi. I can remember specifically saying The Cure was my favorite band back in second grade.”

“It’s very strange when people get so focused on what a song means, what actual events inspired a song. That gets people really excited for some reason… But that’s what’s great about music – however people interpret it, whatever they see, is what I want to be there for them.”

“In many ways Bright Eyes is really a studio project. We form bands to tour, but it really is – you know, we take the songs and we figure out how to decorate them and it’s all in the studio; we build the songs that way.”

“The fact that anytime you think you really know something, you’re going to find out you’re wrong – that is the rule. The moments where you think you have something figured out, those are the exceptions.”

“I have on many occasions spoken my mind from stage. I have offered organizations table space by the merch booth. I have donated a dollar-a-ticket, or the entire guarantee, to different causes. I have registered voters. I have played on behalf of political candidates.”

“I think there are some songs that stand the test of time better than others for sure. I think some songs go out of favour; I’ll get sick of a song for a while, and I won’t play it; then it’ll make a comeback.”

“I remember having to quit school and quit my job. I just sort of moved all my stuff into other people’s places. Within, like, six months, I was able to earn enough money from touring to rent a place again.”